"I'm always writing or playing because that is my life"
About this Quote
For Rick Wakeman, music is not a profession but a metabolism. The claim of always writing or playing collapses the usual boundary between work and life, turning creativity into a daily pulse rather than a scheduled task. It speaks to identity: not a keyboardist who happens to compose, but a person for whom composition and performance are the ways of being in the world.
Wakeman’s career makes that ethos concrete. Classically trained at the Royal College of Music, he left formal study to become a tireless session player, laying piano for artists like David Bowie and Cat Stevens by day while honing his voice with the Strawbs and, soon after, soaring through the symphonic ambitions of Yes. The 1970s found him constructing vast solo canvases such as The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Journey to the Centre of the Earth, fusing rock, orchestral writing, and electronics. Those capes and banks of keyboards were not mere spectacle; they signaled an artist who needed multiple instruments within reach because ideas never arrived single-file.
The line also captures a rhythm: writing and playing as a loop. Composing feeds performance with structure and intent; performing feeds composition with touch, audience energy, and the surprises of improvisation. Progressive rock magnified that cycle, demanding thematic development, long-form architecture, and technical agility. Staying always at the keys is how such complexity remains supple rather than brittle.
There is discipline hidden inside the romance. Constant output rarely comes from sudden inspiration alone; it comes from habits that make inspiration likelier. Wakeman’s humor and raconteur’s charm can obscure the grind beneath the glitter, yet his decades of albums, tours, and collaborations reveal a practice that outlasts fashion. To say that playing and writing are his life is to reject the idea of an off-duty artist. It is a vow to remain in motion, to meet each day with hands on the keys, and to let a lifetime of curiosity do the composing.
Wakeman’s career makes that ethos concrete. Classically trained at the Royal College of Music, he left formal study to become a tireless session player, laying piano for artists like David Bowie and Cat Stevens by day while honing his voice with the Strawbs and, soon after, soaring through the symphonic ambitions of Yes. The 1970s found him constructing vast solo canvases such as The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Journey to the Centre of the Earth, fusing rock, orchestral writing, and electronics. Those capes and banks of keyboards were not mere spectacle; they signaled an artist who needed multiple instruments within reach because ideas never arrived single-file.
The line also captures a rhythm: writing and playing as a loop. Composing feeds performance with structure and intent; performing feeds composition with touch, audience energy, and the surprises of improvisation. Progressive rock magnified that cycle, demanding thematic development, long-form architecture, and technical agility. Staying always at the keys is how such complexity remains supple rather than brittle.
There is discipline hidden inside the romance. Constant output rarely comes from sudden inspiration alone; it comes from habits that make inspiration likelier. Wakeman’s humor and raconteur’s charm can obscure the grind beneath the glitter, yet his decades of albums, tours, and collaborations reveal a practice that outlasts fashion. To say that playing and writing are his life is to reject the idea of an off-duty artist. It is a vow to remain in motion, to meet each day with hands on the keys, and to let a lifetime of curiosity do the composing.
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| Topic | Music |
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